Chapter 8

It was after four when it started to rain in Stockton. Jarrod hadn't been paying any attention to the approaching clouds, concentrating on his work completely, but then he began to hear the heavy drops of rain hitting his window. Startled, he got up, and he cursed himself for not even noticing the weather.

He told his secretary, "I'm going to try to get home before this gets much worse," and he left, but getting home to outrun the weather wasn't really on his mind. As much as he hated to think it, he was getting concerned about what Sophie had said.

His rain slick was with his horse at the livery, and he threw the poncho over his head before he headed out. Fortunately it was not raining that heavily anywhere, but when he came to the bridge over the stream, he got a shock. This was the stream that usually proved to be the flooding problem if there was going to be one – the same stream Nick and Heath had tangled with much further upstream. Jarrod noticed that the bridge was clogged with fallen limbs and even an entire tree, making a slight dam that made the water upstream gather and spread out wide. Jarrod hesitated there. He wasn't sure what condition the bridge was in, but the damming of the water upstream kept the water on the downstream side of the bridge fairly low. Jarrod hurried his horse through the water on the downstream side and was soon safely across and heading home.

It was close to five thirty and the rain had stopped completely at the house when he got there. Ciego took his horse – but the man looked awfully nervous. "Everything all right, Ciego?" Jarrod asked.

"Senor Nick and Senor Heath had a very close call today," Ciego said, and Jarrod felt his stomach sink. "They got caught in a flood."

Alarmed, Jarrod hurried into the house, throwing his wet hat and poncho over the table just inside the foyer. His mother and sister came toward him fast.

"Everything is all right," Victoria said quickly, holding him back. "Nick and Heath are fine."

"What happened? Where are they?" Jarrod asked.

"They're cleaning up," Victoria said. "They got caught in a flood, and they're full of mud and scratched up and banged up, but they're all right."

"Nick is helping Heath doctor himself a bit, up in his room," Audra said.

Jarrod hurried upstairs, taking the steps two at a time, and in a moment he knocked at Heath's door. He went in as soon as he heard Heath's voice.

Heath was sitting on the bed, shirtless but in dry pants and socks and it looked like he had taken a bath. Nick was in a similar state only wearing boots too. He was putting liniment on the many cuts and gashes Heath had all over his face, chest and arms. Nick wasn't scraped up as badly.

"What happened?" Jarrod asked.

"Flash flood," Nick said. "Heath was in the stream when it hit."

"I got into a tree and Nick managed to pull me out, but I didn't have a shirt on and you can see what the rocks in the water and all those tree limbs did to me," Heath said.

"Thank God you're alive," Jarrod said. "Are you all right, Nick?"

"Yeah, a few scratches but not much," Nick said.

Jarrod sighed and sat down into a chair. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, I saw Mademoiselle Sophiette today."

His brothers both stopped and looked suspicious, uneasy.

Jarrod shook his head. "She saw me in the Stockton House and told me that whatever she saw that was going to happen to you, Heath, was going to happen today, but that everything would work out fine. She told me about the rain, even though when I saw her it was bright and sunny out."

"Oh, boy," Heath sighed.

Nick resumed putting the liniment on Heath's cuts and scratches, but his hands were shaking now. "She really did see something," he finally said quietly.

"It seems so," Jarrod said, resigned now. She really had seen something, detailed enough to make him doubt his skepticism. He hated that, but he was stuck with it, at least for this one instance.

Nick finished with the liniment, and Heath stood up, slowly and stiffly. He had a shirt lying on the bed next to him, and he put it on. "Well, if she was right – and it looks like she was – it's all over now," Heath said.

Nick looked at Jarrod. "Except for the part where she told our big brother to stay away from us."

Earlier in the day, Jarrod would have scoffed. Now he wasn't so sure, but he wasn't ready to give in to it either. "She didn't have anything more to say about that, Nick," Jarrod said. "Let's just let it alone."

Nick glanced at Heath buttoning his shirt. "After this, how can we?"

"Well, what do you want to do? Go talk to her again?"

Heath tried stretching sore muscles. "I'm not going anywhere except to where we keep the whiskey." He grabbed his boots and sat down again to put them on.

"I'll go get a shirt," Nick said and left the room.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Jarrod asked Heath.

Heath nodded and pulled one boot on. "Just sore. Turns out it's a lot of exercise just hanging onto a tree. Jarrod, what you just told us – you know you just set Nick off again, don't you?"

"I know," Jarrod said, "and I've done a little of that to myself. Con artists don't usually get as specific as Sophie did with me today. And I can't deny it, she was spot on."

"I think I ought to talk to her."

Jarrod eyed his youngest brother. "Maybe you're right. Regardless of what she says about me, I get the feeling the two of you still need to put some things to rest. She looked awfully relieved when she said you were going to be all right, Heath."

Heath pulled on his other boot and stood up, slowly again. "If she looked relieved to think I was gonna be all right, it's all leftover feeling. There's nothing between us now." He heaved a sigh. "I'm too sore to sit a horse tonight. Maybe I'll go see her tomorrow, try to straighten all the rest of this out."

Jarrod rubbed his forehead. "I'd just as soon you don't talk to her about that premonition that I should stay away from you two. I'll think about it overnight, see how I feel in the morning."

"She might bring it up."

"Well, if she does, she does."

"What are you going to say to Mother and Audra?" Heath asked. "After this, they might be about to start worrying."

"I'll say what I just said to you," Jarrod said. "And I still think we ought to keep Nick away from her. I don't want him deciding he wants to hear more about his future."

"Jarrod, he feels guilty because he sent me into that stream."

"How could he have known that's where the problem was supposed to be? It wasn't raining when you went in, was it?"

They started toward the door. "No," Heath said. "Nice and sunny. That flood came from so far upstream we never saw the storm until we were out of the water."

"We'll settle Nick down and settle Mother and Audra down and decide if we need to find out anything more about MY future in the morning. You said she was right about half the time, right?"

"Yeah," Heath said and opened the door.

"Well, she was right about you. Odds are she's wrong about me. Let's go have a drink."

They ran into Nick in the hall, buttoning his shirt on. Nick heard that last sentence of Jarrod's and said, "You ready to leave your future up to the odds?" he asked.

"I'm not ready to give it over to a fortuneteller," Jarrod said, "even if she did get it right about Heath. But let's just have a good dinner and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow."

Nick heaved an uncomfortable sigh. "I don't want to be the cause of anything happening to you, Jarrod."

"You know," Jarrod said, "she didn't say something was going to happen to me. She just said we should stay away from each other. It could be I'm supposed to do something to the two of you."

Nick heaved another sigh. He was starting to get a headache.

"Sophie gave us a warning about today, Nick, and you saved me," Heath said. "If she's warned us about Jarrod, all we gotta do is what we did today – be careful."

Nick hesitated – he had put Heath in harm's way before he saved him - but he gave a nod.

Jarrod gave him a slap on the back. "Tomorrow, Nick. We'll talk about this again tomorrow and figure out what we're going to do then, if we do anything at all."